Going through life, questioning whether or not you are a “good” person, is the wrong question to ask. “Am I happy” is a more important question. “Have I cared for someone” has the potential to treat your own happiness as always less important than that of others to the point of your own happiness not being important atall. The fact that loving someone makes you happy is the part that is not stressed. Loving someone brings youjoy. That is the main point. If the main point is for me to give love to someone else, then that must mean their main point is to give love to me. Who in the fuck is able to accept it and enjoy it? Therefore, that is important and crucial to the whole idea of “love”: accepting it and enjoying it for oneself.

Love is treated as a commandment instead of just being natural. And that’s the problem.

Sitting around waiting for death is a horrible way to live. I do not believe that God put us here to “test” us. I think He put us here just because He wanted us to be here. I don’t know “why“, but I don’t think it was to test us. I think it was more like “Hey, I want to create something that can enjoy something. Here you go, humans. Here’s LIFE.”

When I ignore what I’m told, and “nerd out”, I’m much happier, and my work is better. I hope I can retain this confidence to “choose my words carefully”, and be “overly descriptive”, because it actually makes me happy. With that being said, here’s the topic that I wish to discuss using said hope.

I can’t stand action movies because of their improbability, especially considering the sheer number of action movies out there.

I get that art is a “heightened” sense of reality, but come on now…

The “explosions” are so saturated in film that I am uninterested in them. “Oh, would you look at that. Yet another explosion. How original.” I suppose I’m an idiot, because I’m superficially talking about explosions in movies instead of stories in movies. But I’m not much of a “movie” person (I guess because of all of the EXPLOSIONS).

It’s the same thing with shootings in movies. Most of the bullets miss. I already know this “going in”. I can’t suspend my disbelief enough to care about the “inherent danger” of those in the bullets’ path.

I feel the same way (most of the time) with “good guys” and “bad guys”. I expect the good guys to win. I can’t believe that the bad guy is any real danger because I’m certain he’s going to lose. I prefer the “bad guy” to win at the end because it is an unexpected suckerpunch. It’s kind of like watching a sporting event where the “underdog” loses. Most people want to see the underdog “win”. But in movies, the “underdog” is the villain. I can’t believe that a hero in a movie is an “underdog” (even if the script tries to describe him as such) because I’m sure that he’s going to win. The villain is the underdog in movies, in my mind. I usually want the villain to win. I want the unexpected, and I want to be excited and a little depressed at the end. I don’t want the telegraphed “happy ending”. There’s exceptions to this rule (usually when the movie is about a historical war), but this is generally the case for me. Movies (particularly “action” movies) are mundane to me. I need some twists that I can’t see coming. I want very little predictability (unless it makes me laugh). I think I should do some in-depth movie reviews to try to illustrate what I like and dislike about specific films I have seen to make this easier.

I’ve always been one to care more about whyand how movies were made than “enjoying” movies in the typical way most people do. There, of course, have been many exceptions to this. But generally, I have always been more interested in why there was so much money involved in movies, and why and how the movies were made, as I have already said.

Almost every time I watch a movie, I try to predict what will happen. Sitting there, “waiting” for it to unfold when I already know what is going to happen is so excruciatingly boring. Why would I watch it if I know what is going to happen? It’s like a scientific experiment that has been done forever: sure, when you first have a theory, you need to test it experimentally. But expecting me to “shut up” and “just watch it” is expecting way too fucking much from me. The formula is played out, even if the details vary. I need to experience something else. I recall being younger, watching a movie in school (I forget which one), and I said “Such and such is going to happen.” I was bored to tears, and I kept doing this. Someone finally said “I know, but shut up.” This person was intently watching. Why watch if you know exactly what is going to happen? I never understood it: especially something “serious”. Romance is disgusting (of course). Action movies are boring. Comedies are good, historical movies are good. Drama is a mixed bag. Most of the time, it falls flat on its face to me. A movie like “Jack” starring Robin Williams is an example of a drama done really fucking well. I cried when I first saw it as a teenager. It wasn’t cliché (it seemed very original to me, but I’m no expert). It was incredibly moving. So many dramas seem to be of the romantic variety, so perhaps that’s why I have such a problem with them. It is also just so fucking easy to become melodramatic. It is hard to create a compelling drama. And it is hard to get me to suspend my disbelief (especially with drama).

But I do enjoy the “horror” genre of movies. The more extreme, the better. Why do I get tired of explosions, but not blood? I don’t know the exact statistics, but is murder less “probabilistic” than explosions “in the real world”? Why do I care more for blood than explosions?

I should specify that I’m still not an avid “movie watcher”. I don’t gorge myself with horror films. I’m not really a “movie guy”. But when I do watch a movie, I want it to either be a comedy or a horror film. (Or a Batman film. I’ll have to leave him for another piece).

So why do I love blood in movies so much more than explosions?

I guess it’s because I enjoy purposeful, evil darkness more so than accidental explosions (even if the explosions are purposeful. I want to see some fake blood where the tone is more “dark” than “exciting”. To me, “dark” is “exciting”. “Exciting” is “boring”. It has become cliché).

Couldn’t it be said that murderis also cliché and boring? How many stabs and slashes can you watch? Once again, I repeat, I’m not a big “movie guy”, but murder films are more refreshing to me (believe it or not) than “The good guys always win and the horror doesn’t even look that bad” films. A guy robbed a bank. Who cares? Why should I be invested? Does he have a hostage? How bad does he treat the hostage? A “bad guy” is selling drugs. Who cares?I want his reason for being bad to be almost incomprehensible. Why does he kill? He just does. Or something traumatizing happened to him. I don’t want it to make any sense. Money makes too much sense to me. If a villain is going to be a villain because of money, he needs to be a really fucking brutal villain for me to care. (Color is also a big deal to me. I want everything to look dark and dirty: not bright and flashy).

If people are racing in a movie, and there’s an explosion (or a chase scene leading to the same thing), the “accident” doesn’t feel real to me because I know it was scripted. There’s just a certain tone that movies have to have for me to like them. A guy walking away from an explosion in slow-motion while rock music plays makes me want to blow my brains out. It is possible that I found the character compelling before that moment, in which case, his previous circumstances may make his “badassery” interesting. But I hate explosions for their own sake. I just, more often than not, can’t find explosions compelling. It depends on the characters and the tone of the film, but most of the time, it feels like explosions are the reasons why movies are created. “People are gonna pay to watch shit blow up. Nothing else matters, but let’s have some really fucking fast cars in there as well. We need to have something to happen in between the explosions, and people expect to see a movie that’s at least an hour and a half, so let’s make it happen!” I don’t watch a lot of movies, but I get the sense that so many movies revolve around explosions, and I find that quite lazy. Once again, I’m probably wrong, because I don’t watch a lot of movies, but that’s just my impression of them. There probably needs to be some parody involved if I’m going to care about explosions. Or, ironically enough, some drama surrounding them. Not action. I’m fucking tired of “action”.

When I first saw the movie “Atomic Twister” as a young teen, I was hooked. The idea of a tornado hitting a nuclear power plant was fucking terrifying to me. That was, really, all I needed: the fact that it could be real, and be really devastating. And it was original: sure, there’s the movie “Twister”. But this was “Atomic Twister” (lol). Yes, I was younger, and I know this affected my perception of the movie. But it wasn’t “Cars drive real fast – anti-hero – drugs are involved – bang-bang shoot ’em up” movie. Most of those make me want to fucking vomit.

However, when you have a very sadistic killer, I feel like the writer of the script is trying to understand these killers on the deepest level possible (besides going out and killing someone in real life), and that attempt to connect humanely with something so inhumane is appealing to me. “Why does he kill?” “No one knows.” That is a compelling story to me.

When you can move past the fear (at least the nearly-religiousfear of being so afraid of it that you ignore it and try to get away from it as much as possible, including not attempting to empathize with it in any way to humanize it), it becomes a deep, heartfelt, gut-wrenching journey between trying to relate to those so despicable. It is, in my opinion, one of the most humane things one can do. If you can try to understand a serial killer, even if you are trying to empathize with someone who has no empathy (which may or may not be possible: topic for another time), to me, that’s as empathetic as you can get. It may or may not be possible, and I certainly wouldn’t say that you should go out and kill people to know what it feels like, but all the same, I think that, at least for me, and through art, connecting to that type of human is exciting. Conflict is extremely important when it comes to art and storytelling, and there is no greater conflict (in my opinion) than extreme life and death; peace and suffering; humanity and complete evil in human form (which, it could be argued, isn’t even human AT ALL. A very interesting discussion).

All I can think of, when real tragedies happen, is sadness. And I try to move on from them quickly, and I don’t try to waste my time trying to understand it, because I don’t think that I could.

But through art, I believe that one can empathize, ponder, and try to relate to these (as they are called) “monsters” in that way that is less angry at their actions (which is understandable), and turn that into tragedy, in trying to understand why they did it, and, perhaps, forgive them for it. It’s a great philosophical topic to think about: empathizing with the unempathetic. It’s too complicated for me to analyze it here, but there’s a deep part of me that wishes to understand human-created horror (I don’t think I’m any different from anyone else in that regard), and I think that the type of art that I create is my way of doing that. I don’t know for a fact if this is correct, but it certainly feels that way…

Also, I think another reason (a potentially BIG reason) that I am “obsessed” with “offensive“, “violent” art has to do with the fear of being one myself, which, no doubt, was greatly influenced by religious preachings of wariness, lest we sin every possible sin, and become a murdering, incestuous, raping, homosexual thief…

I, also, feel the same way about choreographed fighting as I do explosions. I get that to people that enjoy these types of movies, they are some of the more “exciting” parts of these movies. But choreographed fighting (usually) bores me. No one takes a good, solid hit for the first five minutes of fighting (both sides block every blow, or the strikes just completely whiff), and then either the good guy or bad guy gets hurt. They stop, look at their wound. If it’s the bad guy, he gets more angry than he was before, and the good guy can barely defend himself from it. If it is the good guy, the movie makes you think he’s going to lose. But, by some miracle (either from a compromised structure due to earlier in the film, or another character, or whatever), the good guy wins. I know it sounds like I’m always against good guys winning. (Most of the time, I am). But I want the good guy to be compelling to me. Most of the time, this just isn’t the case. I’m rarely invested in the story, because I’m not a “movie” guy. “Dur, then why are you writing about movies, huh?”

I also want to bring up one more aspect of acting in general: dialogue. Maybe I’m being overly-critical here, but the way dialogue is delivered today drives me mad. Cop shows on television are fucking terrible for it. Detective walks in, almost power-walking, throws a folder down on the counter of the “main guy in charge” talking in this low “serious” voice. A question is asked. The dialogue is delivered in the same monotone voice. Guy asks another question. Detective asks a question back in a higher tone. Lead guy answers with a “Well blah blah blah blah.” I can’t fucking take it. I can’t fucking sit through that shit. (The only exception to this was “House”. It was a “detective” show, but it wasn’t a “cop” show. House was a very interesting character. The formula worked for that show. It was like they combined a detective show with a hospital show. It was quite original, and very well done). I have problems with dialogue in action movies, too. They just don’t sell me. I’m not buying into them. Once again, admittedly, I’m not a “movie” guy. But it’s not like a movie or a show can’t capture me. Most of them just don’t, though. The formula is played out. The tones of dialogue are so predictable (as is almost everything else about the movies) that I can’t bring myself to watch them. But, they sell well.

I enjoy movies that are a little weird. A movie like “Teeth”, for instance. A vagina with teeth. Fucking beautiful. Hilarious. Now that is original. It’s got comedy and horror: two of my favorite things.

“Rubber”. A fucking tire that blows shit up. It’s so dumb, and that’s why I love it so much. It’s so “absurd”: “out there”. I find that refreshing. I don’t need to find it believable, or emotional. Give me dumb, but give me original. I think that’s what I enjoy the most about movies.

“Human Centipede”. Need I say more? A fucking hilarious horror movie. My only problem with the movie was the main villain, believe it or not. I enjoyed what he did, but I didn’t enjoy his personality. He came across as a little cheesy to me. I guess I wanted him to come across a little more like Jason, or Jigsaw.

One of my favorite movies of all time (and I’m not joking): “The Descent”. I know that is going to sound weird to pretty much everyone. “I can tell you really haven’t seen a lot of movies, Cody.” The whole setting in that movie was wonderful to me. There’s a real terror involved: what if you do get fucking lost in this cave? What if you can’t get out? I found it very compelling. The bullshit at the end was funny and cheesy, but I was emotionally invested before that.

I want my movies to be a little bit weird. A little bit “off-kilter”. Once again, I’d like to write some movie and show reviews. Some reviews of movies I watched a long time ago. Same with television shows. I’d like to even do the same thing with some books, eventually.

I’m not going to claim that any of my reviews are “objective” in any way, and, of course, you have the right to disagree with everything I say about any review. I’m not claiming that “I’m right and you’re wrong”: I’m just writing my opinions.

Anything that is written, as this is, must come from some perspective. Something that is created must go somewhere. Must have some meaning. There has to be a reason for why the creator created it. It must come from the vision of the creator. The creator wants people to see his end result. He has intrinsic motivations that he expresses outwardly. This fact isn’t exclusive to “artists”. This is true every second of every day from every person on the planet. I’m not going to attempt to rewrite “Human Action”, but human beings do things in attempts to satiate their desires. This occurs constantly. There is no avoiding this. Along this path, each individual has a different perspective: an overall way of viewing the world, or an outlook.

This outlook is influenced by countless factors. There’s certainly a “natural” element to it: genetics, “fate”, etc. And, of course, experience has a large part to do with it as well: particularly, early on in life. Of course, experience always changes a person, but youth includes a deep impressionability that is unlike any other time in a person’s life. A person’s childhood affects them forever. It doesn’t mean that they will always be “the same”, but one’s first experiences shape the way a person views the world, and these first realized experiences “stick with” a person because of the desperate impressionability of youth, as well as just the fact that your first experiences will be the experiences you carry with you the longest in life simply by virtue of them being “the first” that you recognize.

My first thought is that it is very clear how an individual can become just an absolute disaster of a person because of their earliest experiences. I just imagine a baby being raised in a scientific experiment where he or she is conditioned to be extraordinarily angry, and I quiver. Thankfully, most parents care for their children, I would argue, so this situation is not the majority. There’s certainly a lot of problems that will always exist in the world with regards to parenting, but at least there are many parents that care for their kids, even if there will be those unfortunate souls who are abandoned or abused in ways hardly imaginable to the compassionate mind.

What should we do with our time here on Earth? There is hardly a more important question. This is about what we do. What else is there but “to do”? There’s nothing but “to do”. Life is “to do”. So what to do is what life is. Since “life” is all we have while we are alive, and we do things while we are alive, it is important to know what we are doing, and why. Anyone that doesn’t like the question “why” should be avoided: they have absolutely no sagacity in them whatsoever. You should always ask “why”. Why? That’s the spirit. You get it. Be skeptical of me. I encourage it. Challenge me. You should ask why until you reach your breaking point. For me, that takes a while.

If action is inevitable, does it matter what action is taken, or why specific actions are taken or not taken? From what perspective would these matter? Who do these actions matter to, and why? Quite obviously, it matters to the person taking the action. Individuals take action in an attempt to satisfy themselves more so than they are currently. And we do this until we die. That’s the end of it. That is “life”.

I am tempted to ask why we are different from one another. Why we have different desires, personalities, etc. One might say “Because God wanted it that way”, but I’m skeptical of religious answers. They’re usually a way to fearfully avoid questions. And I try to “avoid” that. “We just are” is probably the best answer, but I can’t get the question out of my head. A saneperson would just “move on”, but I never do. I ponder the unanswerable perpetually. I don’t know why. It’s just how I am. That’s just how I see the world.

Everyone that exists has a perspective of everything they can conceive of. This makes something such as “perspective” hard to write about. Perspective regarding what? Whose perspective? Even when discussing perspective “in general”, you have to give examples to illustrate your point. For instance, one of my “perspectives” or “philosophies” is an acceptance of evil in the world. What do I mean by this? Surely everyone knows that evil is an inevitability. Well, this perspective is very prevalent to me on a regular basis. I’m always deeply aware of injustices that I find are important to me, and thinking about them takes up a large portion of my time. I know they’ll never go away completely, in an ultimate sense, but yet, I still think about them. I’ll never “ultimately” satisfy my hunger: I’m always going to be hungry in the future, and I’ll think about food at that time. This is how I feel about “injustice”: there’s always going to be another one to direct my attention to. Injustice will always exist, but it will always get my attention to some degree. That’s the point. I’m always going to notice things, and always going to talk about them. That’s a large part of my “perspective” about life. And, as I said, it occupies a large portion of it.

Another perspective that occupies a lot of my time is: why do I have to be here on this planet with other people? I understand the humor in that question. And, of course, why do other people have to be on this planet with me? The majority of people that I encounter just “exist” in my world. I’m not friends with them, nor enemies with them, but just aware of them. I think this is inevitable for everyone. There’s just too many people to be intimate with them all. And, of course, I’m more grumpy than extroverts who enjoy the presence of other people, so this attitude of mine is “skewed” from the point of view of someone that would consider themselves to be more extroverted. There’s many jokes about how “cold” people are, especially in big cities. I don’t want to go on some moral crusade about it.

There’s so many people that exist today. It’s frightening, in a sense. For one, babies are being born into an imperfect world, and thus, are going to experience suffering and joy, back and forth, throughout their entire lives. Would it just be better for them if they were never born? If they never had to experience the bad? Sure, they’d never experience the good. But what about the bad? Is it worth it to bring another child into this world? I don’t think so, but I’m not in charge of the decision of others to have children. Secondly, just the number of people is frightening. Human ingenuity has a way of finding ways to make things work, but I just envision a doomsday overpopulation scenario when I try to conceive of the number of people that exist on the planet. I truly can’t, so I don’t think about it too often.

“Growing up” is a phrase I commonly hear. I want to whine and complain, and already I can hear others saying that I need to “grow up”. And I’m already ignoring them. Whining and complaining is fun. It is going to my grave with me. I’m never just going to “accept” something shitty. I’m going to whine and complain and drag my heels the entire time, and if that depresses you to a point where my very existence makes you feel negative emotion, then all I can tell you is just to grow up.

My career failures eat me alive as well. The more that I hear I can’t, the more that I want to prove that I can. It feeds me. I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to starve myself to death from lack of nourishment, but I can’t give up, because I know that would be spiritually defeating. I’m never going to let myself give up, even if I don’t succeed. That regret would be unbearable. I enjoy the challenge and the ridicule. It makes the dream that much more sweet. My “delusion” is what I live for.

In many ways, my overall perspective is hopelessness. When I notice injustices, I feel hopeless. When I’m working on my career, I feel optimistic. That’s all the more incentive for me to consume myself with it, of course. But I face my own hurdles there as well: namely, getting burnt out. Another struggle of work and relaxation. It’s easy to notice your failures when your eyes are on the goal. If it ever does happen, it is going to be a giant, unpredictable slap in the face.

All of the doubt fuels me. All of the “advice”, “hate”, everything that says that I can’t or that I won’t fuels me immensely. It’s why I do it. I do it just because I’m told I can’t. That drives me every single day. I wake up, and say “What am I going to write today? What jokes am I going to create today? Today is the day I go viral.” I don’t really care if today isn’t the day that it happens. It’ll happen tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be an old man, full of regret for these days. But that’s a chance that I’m willing to take. I’d rather regret trying than regret never trying.

Admittedly, I have a long way to go. The more that I want to write, the more I realize just how far I have to go to get it to a quality that I’ll really be satisfied with. But the thought of being able to wave my paychecks in the faces of my doubters is motivation enough. No doubt, you are looking forward to seeing a 40-year-old me flipping hamburgers. May the best man win.

Keeping with themes already mentioned, perhaps the deepest question one can ever ask is: Why are we here? Why do we have life here on this planet? Man has always had this question. This question is at the root of all of the “what” that I mentioned earlier. Because what you do is largely influenced by why you believe you are here. Many who believe that we are here to serve God live out their lives in accordance with what they believe serving God means. If you believe that we are “just here”, that will influence the what that you do while alive. The “why” is at the root of every “what”. It drives every “what”. “Why” helps create your entire overall perspective of your life: your attitudes, your actions, etc. Perspective is impossible to avoid. Some may ignorantly say “What do you mean ‘perspective’? You’re looking too much into this. I don’t have a ‘perspective’.” But you’re wrong. You have to have a perspective. You have to have some way of looking at the world. It doesn’t mean that you have “rose-tinted glasses”, but you have to have some intrinsic beliefs that affect the way you see the world. This is impossible to avoid. This perspective is altered by countless things. There’s always a reason for doing the things that we do.

What was my reason for writing this? I enjoyed it. Have I said anything “revolutionary”? Have I said anything that isn’t already commonly known? No, I haven’t. I just get pleasure out of writing about truths, and, clearly, the fact that we all have different perspectives, influenced by countless things, is a “truth”. Have I essentially said something as true as “We need air to breathe”? Yes. So why write about it at all? Because it brings me joy. That’s the only reason I need.

I find the need for mental stimulation to be annoying and tiresome. Boredom drives me constantly. It is frequently satisfied, but it always comes back. This will always be the case. My entire life is going to be a pendulum between boredom and being swamped. This constant lack of complete satisfaction drives me crazy. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Cody. You can’t always get what you want.” I have to wonder why people so proudly proclaim these obvious truths. My first thought is “Well, Cody, didn’t you just admit in this piece that you are writing about basic truths, and that you enjoy it? Aren’t they doing the same thing by stating truths?” Well, I can certainly see that they get some satisfaction from it. But who am I trying to tear down in this piece? People who say these “truths” often do it to make themselves feel better. They themselves feel like shit, so they try to make other people feel like shit so that they feel better about themselves. That’s a major theme that I see any time I see “advice” flying around. That’s not why I started this piece. Am I not ridiculing these assholes? This comes down to “who started it”. If I were to be envious of someone and then tried to tear down what they were doing, this whole situation would be different. That isn’t what started this piece. I’m discussing people that do that frequently, and that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily doing that myself.

People are obstacles. There will be helping hands, and there will be fisticuffs. I think there is a natural tendency to focus on the bad that is actually necessary to our survival. If our house is burning down, we can’t just sit and watch the T.V. show we are enjoying just so that we “feel” good. We need to do something about the fire. Focusing on the bad isn’t a bad thing. It is crucial. But it goes without saying that we need to be able to fully experience the good when it comes around. My entire childhood revolved around how bad everything was: how bad I was in the eyes of God, how lost the world was. There was a lot of “bad” that has affected my perspective of the world to this very day. But, of course, there were many great things about my childhood that also stick with me to this very day that I’m very thankful for. My life is going to be about fully embracing the good when it comes around. I’m going to still enjoy railing against the bad, because it brings me joy, and it feels important to do so. But that has always been easy for me to do, and it will always be easy for me to do. Enjoying the good will be much more difficult (which is such a fucking irony, on so many levels). It is going to take a reprogramming on my part to fully be able to appreciate the good. Developing a life philosophy takes……….well, a lifetime to do. If I die sooner rather than later, none of this is going to matter as much. But I’m not going to “bank” on the fact that I’m going to die soon to keep me from developing a life philosophy. Death has consumed my mind for long enough. Thinking about Heaven and Hell has consumed enough of my life. Sadly, this occurred early on, and you remember what I said about earlier experiences. It will be tough to move on from this, but it is absolutely fucking necessary for my mental health to do so. I pity those still trapped in a “Heaven and Hell” mindset. And damn you all that introduce that concept to children. Children should never be made to fear. They need to be taught things about life, and they need to experience happiness. That is the role of a good parent. If it doesn’t make their life better, they don’t need it.

Of course, the hard part is explaining why fearing Hell is not something that children need to learn. That would take a lot of time and in-depth explanation to explain. In simplest terms, if God exists, and wants me to go to this perfect paradise, why does He want me to go? The common explanation is that He loves me and cares for me. Well, if He does, why would He make me torture myself while I’m here on Earth? If it is because I am a sinner, why would He ever forgive me for my sins? In other words, let’s say that misery exists on this Earth because we are all sinners. Why should that be our focal point if we are religious? Why must we focus on that exclusively as Christians? Once again, if our house was burning down, we should turn off the T.V. But our house isn’t burning down. Isn’t that the point of being a “Christian”? “Christian”. “Christ”. Obviously, that’s where the term comes from. So who was Christ? Well, there’s a lot of talk of forgiveness of sins, and of love. So if we are Christians, why can’t we accept this? Why can’t we forgive ourselves? If the Almighty has forgiven us, as Christians believe, why would we consider it a requirement for this forgiveness to torture ourselves? It does not compute. If we cannot accept the forgiveness of our sins through Christ, then Christ was pointless. Christ did not die for us simply for after we die: He died for us while we are here. He put us on a planet, not in Heaven (although, admittedly, initially on a perfect planet, but we fucked it up. How could we fuck up a perfect planet? I don’t know. Why do I believe this? At the risk of turning people off, I’m going to say that God forces me to with a gentle force. It isn’t a fearful force, but a loving force. I guess the nature of “believers” and “non-believers” is that there will always exist an incompatibility between the two, but we don’t have to murder each other because of it. “Live and let live”. If it makes you happy to debate, then do so. But you shouldn’t feel a “duty” to do so if you get no enjoyment from it. If that means people condemn you as some religious crazy, I guess you’ll just have to live with it (I’m talking to myself, of course)).

Life is about learning who to listen to and who to ignore. There will always be an inherent incompatibility between all of the ideas that exist: either you believe murder is acceptable, or it isn’t (I’m not talking about self-defense or abortion, but simply murdering someone walking down the street whom you have never met in your entire life before that moment). If you take all of the actions that a human being could take, there will, obviously, exist contradictory actions. Some actions are simply incongruous with others. The same is true for ideas: some ideas are just completely contradictory to others. Some ideas cannot simultaneously be believed. Life is about figuring out which ideas to adopt for yourself, and then, applying those ideas into actions that satisfy you the most. Once again, this is all we do, every single day, of our entire lives, until we die. This is “the struggle”. Living this “struggle” without being able to stop and smell the roses makes the struggle all the more difficult. And I think that’s the lesson here. Don’t ignore your burning house, but make sure that you’re actually focusing on your burning house, and not some other non-issue. Focus on what is important, enjoy the good, but don’t waste your time on struggles that don’t benefit you to focus on. Life is about figuring out which struggles are worth focusing on and which aren’t. It’s a constant conflict, but if you believe smelling roses is “bad”, and should be avoided, or even worse, condemned, you need to reevaluate your life. What good is eliminating the bad if good is seen as a bad? Then, you’re just eliminating the good, and that, by very definition, is not “good”. (Once again, don’t interpret this to mean that focusing on the bad is inherently bad. You must find some good from focusing on the bad, or else, you are wasting your time. The degree to which one focuses on “bad” differs from individual to individual, with there, obviously, being a diverse, individualistic pleasure derived from focusing on the “bad” to degrees, and upon which “bad” is focused).

Sadly, even good news can be perverted with duty. There has to be some naturality when it comes to good. I’m thinking of moralistic phrases like “You can’t always get what you want”, or “Stop and smell the flowers every once in a while.” There’s a dark side to these phrases. I already mentioned one aspect of the dark side to these phrases: the “envious” side. But there’s a more innocent dark side as well. I have found that a lot of these phrases are repeated by people that aren’t very smart. This isn’t a knock on them, but just an observation. I think that when people have a hard time understanding the world, they just repeat these phrases to themselves to help them get through the day. There’s nothing wrong with that: do the best you can with what you have. It’s just an observation, and more reason why I, personally, resent repetitive, “feel-good” phrases.

I am becoming more and more convinced that each person gives his or her life its own meaning. Lives are long. Days add up. We just need things to do. We crave mental stimulation. We crave meaning. We desire things, and try to achieve them. All of this adds up to “life”. We create our lives for ourselves through our actions. We accept the things that we cannot change, but we still take actions to better ourselves. We make decisions. And we desire. We see the world through a “lens” affected by genetics and our experiences. The variety of these “perspectives” is immense. There will naturally be conflicts among various perspectives. But I cannot live your life, and you cannot live my life. I live mine, and you live yours. The best thing to do is to focus on oneself. Do what you want, and do the best you can. A large majority of us care that other people succeed, and we can “live and let live” when people pursue their own interests. Of course, there will be busy-bodies that try to physically force individuals from living their own lives, and they should be condemned as the moral busy-bodies that they are (and there are plenty of them). But, intrinsically, we should all understand the value of the individual will. It should be cherished and respected, because the will is what makes a man who he is. We can’t respect individuals if we don’t respect individual will. This does not mean that people and choices cannot be critiqued and condemned, but will itself is not something that should be destroyed through violent subjection. The human will is human nature. There can be no peace among humans without peace of human wills. There should be a definitive critique of evil wills, and, simultaneously, a heralding of good wills. Life is a constant conflict between these two, and that’s just the way it is always going to be until we die. (I’m not saying that, for instance, murderers should keep all of the rights they had before they murdered. There are, of course, actions that should be dealt with. But humans still need the ability to exercise these wills, and they should not be prevented from exercising their wills in a matter that only affects themselves. “What if their actions affect their family, Cody? What if their family doesn’t like the choices the individual is making?” Why is a “negative rights” philosophy so prevalent today? Why was there an “Enlightenment”? Men have written about this whole concept of “the will”, and of individuality, so I’d suggest you go read some of them, as I’m probably not going to be able to add anything more beneficial to the conversation. But it is “natural” for man to be able to exercise his own will. When a man’s will chooses to do good, peaceful, loving things to and for his fellow man, good, peace, and love increase. Without his ability to choose to do these things, the entire purposesbehind good, peace, and love are lost). I’ve spoken a lot about “will” here. But don’t I believe that humans don’t have free will? Well, the question becomes: free from “what”? I’ll write more about this later.

There is a deep, moralistic fear among progressives and conservatives. For conservatives, that fear is facing God’s wrath, and going to Hell. For progressives, it is the fear of not being a good person. Both of these, very obviously, overlap. The differences are in the specific details. But they both miss an important point about life: they do not valuehappiness. To the conservative, “God” is more important than your happiness. For the progressive, “social duty” is more important than your happiness. I reject both of these ideas wholeheartedly. I’ve already discussed why I think the idea that God doesn’t care about my happiness is nonsense. But as far as “social duty” is concerned, what good is it to hold this “moral” idea if it doesn’t bring you pleasure? What is the ultimate goal with regards to this “social duty”? There has to be a goal at the end. If the goal involves any sort of “perfection”, I immediately reject it. Any notion of completely eliminating poverty, or any other social ill is an impossibility. “Perfection” can never be a goal. This is why I reject “social duty” philosophy: it is all hellbent on completely eradicating, for example, racism, sexism, poverty, etc. “Perfection” is not something humans can achieve. Thankfully, I know this intrinsically. Any attempt at “perfection” is a waste of time. Any goal regarding “social good” must be approached from a different “perspective”: the doer of the “social good” must derive some pleasure from the good he is doing. On an individual basis, it does feel good to help other people. This is why good should be done. It increases the “social happiness” of everyone involved. Of course, the receiver of the charity is, more than likely (and that’s an understatement), going to be happy at receiving the charity, and the betterment of his lot. But, and this is something that isn’t sold enough, in my opinion, the giver of the charity also receives a psychological benefit from the giving. That needs to be stressed. There certainly is a “good” in giving to those that are in need, but doing so without receiving a psychological benefit from doing so is to give in vain. There’s a very crucial piece to the puzzle missing. Some may ignorantly claim that “giving is about more than yourself.” I clearly said the same: it’s not just about you benefiting. Very obviously, the receiver is benefiting as well. But we must accept that we feel good when we give, and we must be able to experience that goodness in full. We must, once again, “be able to stop and smell the roses every once in a while.” Those opportunities are not a constant state of being. Without being able to recognize and experience them, we are cheating ourselves terribly. When we are able to naturally accept good for ourselves, we will naturally want to spread that good to others, and this will be our perspective of the world. It will not be tainted with fear of God, and a fear of Hell. It will be the natural love and goodness that, ironically, God desires. That’s the tragic irony about religious conservatism: is that it misses the point of “religiosity” altogether.

“Happiness” as an end goal is condemned on many fronts, and that’s a damn shame. Truly evil people have contaminated the idea of “happiness”. “Isn’t the rapist happy when he rapes?” Admittedly, that’s a pertinent question. I, personally, don’t think that evil can make one happy. I think that evil just makes one more miserable, and that makes evil all the more tragic. “Why would someone do evil if they didn’t gain something from it? Did you not say, earlier in this piece, that everyone performs actions in an attempt to better themselves? Are not the murderer and the rapist doing this?” Sure. In the case of a rapist, it is easy to see what they “gain” by raping. Very clearly, it should be condemned. But, and this is more controversial, it should be stated that the rapist is, very clearly, missing out on something very important by raping. He is missing out on emotional intimacy, romance, and love. This, of course, is not to downplay the fact that the victim of rape is being cheated of even more than this, and to a horrifically higher degree. The idea of feeling pity on evil people is not a common idea, and I truly understand that position. But I do feel a sympathy for evil people, because they are truly missing out on a lot of life. Having a desire to kill cheats you of healthy relationships. Of course, it cheats the one killed of their very life, which should be vehemently condemned. But to neglect the fact that the perpetrator is cheating himself is disingenuous. It should be said. Of course, more attention should be given to his heinousness, and empathy should be given to the loved ones, with mourning occurring for the victims. None of this is debatable. But evil people are cheating themselves, and this needs to be said. It may fall on deaf ears, and I believe there are truly people beyond rehabilitation, but when discussing serious matters such as these, it is important to recognize all realities of the situation. Very obviously, focus more attention on the victims of heinous crimes, but understand that all involved are cheated, albeit to vastlydifferent degrees. So while it is still true that people try to satisfy their desires, and some of these desires are going to include murder and rape, we must understand that ultimately everyone is getting cheated in these situations, and that, very clearly, there are ideals that we should herald and conditions that we must strive for through our actions. But we must have an effective philosophical perspective about this all.

I suppose that I am very blessed. I am very good at introspection. I’m, typically, good at figuring out why I think or feel the way that I do. I have a high ability to observe myself, and analyze myself. This, of course, makes writing about myself easier to do. And while, rightly so, many will dismiss me as just some young jackass that can’t stop talking about himself as if the world cares, I think there’s value in what I say. Maybe not to you, or to “successful” people, but I’m sure there are people out there that will say “Huh. That’s pretty good. I never thought of it that way. I like that.”

It is tragic that I could not fully understand my past perspectives as I was experiencing them for the first time. It makes me sad that I couldn’t recognize the worthlessness of my past religious philosophies. It has affected me for the worst. I am thankful that I can see it now, but I can’t help but wonder what might have been. Once again, injustices eat me alive, and I can’t help but think how much better my life would be today if I would’ve never been introduced to religious conservatism. I’m no longer “as”, I suppose I’ll phrase it, religiously conservative as I used to be. But I still remember what it was like, and I lament at the fact that I, as a child, thought the things I did. It pains me to a great degree. I’ll never get those years back. No one that is cheated in their youth, in a variety of “cheats”, ranging in degrees, do. That’s very sad. This never-ending conflict between good and evil is exhausting.

I still see religious conservatism in my perspectives today. My rational mind will ask “Why am I doing this?” And then, I’ll realize it is because of a past religious belief, and think “Oh. This goes deeper than I thought. This is a whole can of worms here.” It’s hard to really know what to replace it with. I don’t want anything to do with it. I want it all gone. I want a new way of looking at the world. And that’s the hard part. Realizing that I’m doing it is now happening. But it is hard to find a new way of looking at things. My entire life has revolved around avoiding “pleasure” in order to obtain “Heaven”. “Pleasure” makes me emotionally uncomfortable. But that attitude has always made me fucking miserable, so I want it gone. I want to learn how to value pleasure. And that’s hard to do when you have years and years of crippling emotional baggage of sadness and anxiety. It really is hard to teach and old dog new tricks (thankfully, I’m changing at a relatively young age. I wasn’t “conservative” for 50 years, or so).

I’m constantly looking for new things. I’m always trying to learn. Frequently, I learn a little about many different things, but they don’t interest me enough to continue really learning about them in any detail. My mind is too consumed with philosophy to care about much else. I don’t care about zoology, or whatever. I learn a little bit here and there, but there’s always something missing. Besides attempting to pursue my interest in philosophy, the thing that has satisfied me most to-date from an educational standpoint has been economics. The subject has taken over my life for the past several years, and I am very thankful for it. It truly has made me see the world in an entirely new way. It is a very satisfying way. (It only depresses me when I realize the way so many others view economics. Education is an uphill battle, but how do you “educate” people out of wanting to rule the world? How do you “educate” people out of envy? It seems as if many problems are insurmountable, even if they are deadly problems).

My perspective is now one of valuing my personal individual happiness. I am always looking for something to make me happy. Ultimately, I think everyone does this. But I don’t think they understand the value of what they are doing. It is very easy to tell yourself that other things matter more than your happiness. But I think this is a superficial understanding of happiness. As I said, it is important to recognize that giving not only helps out the receiver, but it gives the giversatisfaction as well. This is not stressed enough, in my opinion. This is valuable. Giving increases the happiness of the giver and the receiver.

My “happiness perspective” affects me constantly. I remember, being a child, and having certain ways of viewing the world. You adopt the prejudices and attitudes of your superiors, whether they be parents, teachers, or whatever. I remember, very early on, acting like my father, and having people not respond well to it. My father wasn’t a “bad” man, but he was incredibly sarcastic. “Stubborn”, “opinionated”, what have you. Clearly, these traits were passed on to me. But (and this is quite humorous to say), I learned, quite early on, that not everybody liked me. Not everybody enjoyed sarcasm as much as me. People just thought differently than me. I certainly changed my mind about many different things over time. Changed the way I acted around people, and what I said. (And this has, quite obviously, “corrected” itself over time to a more “normal” and “natural” way of being for me (where I settled to a level of sarcasm and stubbornness that I’m content with, even if others deplore it)). But I never had a sense that I mattered. In a metaphysical sense. I was insignificant “in the grand scheme of things”. First, God didn’t care about my happiness. Then, my happiness didn’t matter because I needed to make money. And that was it. “Your life shall be making money until you die and go to Heaven.” That was an awfully depressing outlook of the world: especially considering the fact that almost everyone I knew hated their job. Their had to be something more: there had to be a deeper perspective than this. I’m glad to say that, for me, there was a deeper perspective. I’m not particularly proud of everything I did to lead me up to adopting this perspective, but I don’t see how I can live without it now. My outlook from my teenage years to now is drastically different. Now, I think this is true for almost everyone. But, in my opinion, I think many adults are missing out on an effective perspective about life. I still interpret adults as miserable people. I know there are countless exemptions to this rule: many are parents, whose kids bring them the ultimate joy. Some are optimists, who are able to stay positive regardless of what happens around them. Many find joy in the countless ways they distract themselves from the mundane. Once again, there’s countless exemptions to my “rule”, but I still get a sense that many adults don’t think that happiness matters in a “universal” sense. I still think there’s many adults that say “God doesn’t care about the happiness of man”, and I’m not just talking about atheists saying that. I’m talking conservatives. Once again, I reject that wholeheartedly. There are, of course, “realistic constraints” in the world. I’ve spent several years learning about these “constraints” (and I think my education is better than the way the “average person” sees these constraints). But they are missing very obvious pieces to the puzzle.

Reality truly is terrifying at times, and it is easy to ignore the writing on the wall. But that’s dangerous. Most people live in ignorant denial about what their governments are capable of. And this is how Holocausts happen. Through my own personal education, I can see countless people trying to ring the warning bells to the American public. In some ways, I think history is still on our side, particularly in the South. As much as I hate the religious conservatism of Southern culture (as well as other things I dislike about the culture), I think there still exists a vibrant skepticism of government that is crucial and healthy to the survival of freedom. They ain’t takin’ our guns without a fight. I want to believe that’s still an attitude that runs through Southerners, but I sometimes doubt that when I see how often they worship the politicians of whatever political party they “belong” to (for whatever reason; or, more often, police officers and soldiers)no matter what they do. It is hard to tell what the future will bring, but I am hopeful. Sadly, evil people will always attempt to encroach, and it takes a brave people to retaliate: a sense of justice isn’t enough. Many in the past have known that what they were doing was wrong, but they didn’t have the courage to confront it. I worry about that today, based on certain trends that I see regarding worship of the American State, but hopefully, our history is still alive and well. Hopefully, our history of revolting from Britain still remains. Sadly, I think the revolution of the South is all but dead, except for very small pockets. I think it is growing, but the growth is so small as to seem impossible to amount to any change in the status quo. But that’s just my personal opinion (it’s hard to accurately gauge any “trend”). It is hard to tell how “the Left” views government. Clearly, they are against cronyism and war. But their assault on capitalism itself is worrisome. Communism isn’t a viable solution to capitalism. “Capitalism” isn’t the problem. But an education can’t really “solve” envy. And it can’t really “solve” evil. These facts are always worrisome. I’m not saying that a communist can’t “convert”. But, inevitably, there are aspects of human nature that can’t be completely “eradicated”: there will always be another murderer, etc.

But, I am an introspective, driven person. I know what my goals are. I am beginning to learn not to state what those goals are, because the main thing that is going to happen is that other people are going to tell me how “unrealistic” they are, how I’m “wasting my time”, etc. I think it is time that I make a choice: a choice that I just don’t even tell anyone what my goals are. It, more than likely, isn’t going to benefit me in any way. More than likely, it’s just going to create more hurdles. I think it’s best to keep my goals private (even though I’ve already written them a billion times on this blog), and focus on myself, and not so much what other people have to say to me.

I look forward to, as I live, writing about all of the different ways in which religious conservatism has affected my perspective. I’ve already done that to a large degree, but I hope there will come a day when it feels like it has disappeared altogether. When it becomes a distant memory instead of a subconscious reality. I don’t know how to rid myself of it: I think it is just going to take time.

Life is a constant ebb and flow. “[We] get knocked down, but [we] get up again.” I want to have as much fun as I possibly can, and I want to learn as much as I possibly can. If I think I have learned something valuable, I want to share it. I want to keep off the boredom and misery as much as possible, even though they have already taken up significant amounts of my life. I guess I’m just like everyone else.

I’m very blessed to have ever been rid of my past conservatism to any degree. The fact that I’m able to criticize it at all is a miracle. I’m extremely pleased with my overall perspective regarding life. I’m looking forward to learning more, and writing more, but the uncertainty of many aspects of the future, including the prospect of negativity, in all of the various forms that it could exist, will always keep me up at night. I’m looking forward to analyzing myself throughout the entire journey, and writing about it.

I’m looking forward to seeing where my perspective goes from here. I know there will be pain involved in the process, but I’m hopeful that the end result will be something that I’m happy with.

I think the most important aspect of my perspective to-date is about my own personal will. As I’ve already stated, in the past, I viewed my will as something to completely ignore. But my interest in politics has lead me to believe in freedom. It truly is just an idea that rings out: people are free. Who wouldn’t want that? I know many don’t, but I still it is still an intrinsic idea to many of us. We have wills, and to not be able to exercise these is an injustice. We need the freedom to be able to make mistakes. We should be reprimanded if we impede upon the freedoms of others. But I value the rights of others to be free. I enjoy learning about how the world works, sociology included. But I need to continue developing myself. My past failings still eat me alive, as I will always wonder “Why didn’t I know that back then?” I fear this will be a lifetime process. I will always look back and say “Why did I think that?” Lamentation will be frequent. But I want to develop values and find joy in what I do. I want to make myself as happy as I can possibly make myself, and that might not be a helluva lot. But I’m looking forward to continue developing and exercising my will, and I hope that nothing to catastrophic comes my way. Like most other people, I just want to be happy, and I’m going to continue practicing to get what I want, and exercise my own personal volition.

I was introduced to the concept of “evil” at a very young age. It was introduced to me through religiousconservatism, as well as through televisionnews. Both were saturated with incessant talk of evil things that people were doing all around the world. When my religion taught me that I was evil, when I watched “the news”, I equated my evil with their evil. I equated myself to the murderers on the television, even though I hadn’t killed anyone. If we’re all lost as sinners, then who cares about comparisons?

Just thinkingabout evil is exhausting. There is no way to create a perfect man. How do we “measure” ourselves as good? Or, better yet, is there value in measuring how “good” we are?

In the past, I would’ve said “Yes”. I measured my good (as well as the good of the whole world) to see who among us, including myself, was going to Heaven. But I never knew what that amount of good needed to get into Heaven was. But I measured away anyway, completely dissatisfied, as the only result I came up with was that “None of us are good enough.”

Well, my religious beliefs have changed over time. And so have my ideas about “good”. But evil still bugs me. I still notice it everywhere. I seem to notice it all of the time. I don’t think it is really possible to ignore it. Throughout the day, I think everyone will, at least one time throughout that day, say “Damn. That isn’t right.” Evil is simply too prevalent to ignore. Sure, when we’re playing with our kids, or reading a book, we aren’t thinking about someone getting raped or murdered in the world. But surely it’s happening. There will be no “end” to it until we die.

Since none of us are sure when we are going to die, and surely we don’t want to think about death constantly, what do we have to look forward to? Why does “looking forward” matter? What do we have but to “look forward”? We look forward as well as looking back. We pleasantly reminisce about the past, while being thankful for getting passed the negative times. We dread the future, while looking forward to what we believe we will enjoy about it. There’s no “constant settling point” with regards to the past and the future (besides the fact that we are alive in the present). There’s no “perspective” that ultimately takes precedent. The past, the present, and the future engage all of our minds. But there’s something special to be said about “moving on”. To hoping. And to just being thankful. You can’t be thankful for anything when your whole life is spent anxiously lamenting and condemning the lack of perfection in the present. Sadly, even this can be taken over by anxiety. There’s nothing that anxiety can’t ruin. It’s a shame.

I should state that, once again, I’m not against lamentation completely. Of course, I’m not completely (there’s that word again) against anxiety. Both serve important functions. But there’s a difference between compassionately bringing up a serious subject that needs attention, and being an asshole about it that no one wants to listen to (being an asshole, I should know this). The latter ultimately boils down to a fearof the lack of “perfection”. I think, ultimately, the motivation comes into play, as well as the “soundness” of one’s argument when one brings up an issue. Is it objectively an issue? That should be argued. After that, why are you bringing up the issue? That should be discussed as well. After those are discussed, it can then be determined whether or not the issue being put on the table is worth “tackling”. Even with this, there will, ultimately, be breakdowns in communication, as ends will conflict with ends, means will conflict with means, etc.

My solution to this is: do what you want. If you want to argue, then argue. If you don’t, then don’t. One can try to bring to the attention of others as many wrongdoings as one can. My measurement is “However many one wants to”. Does it bring you some sense of joy to bring a problem to light? Do you receive something from it psychologically? If so, bring it up. But if you do not gain anything from it, I think the whole situation is fruitless. The nurse that tends to others as a “duty” without getting any pleasure from caring for others is missing the point of her helping others. Of course, they are being helped. That’s important. But the issue is: whywouldn’t that bring one joy? That is the even deeper issue at hand. If one is compassionate, wouldn’t helping others out bring that person joy? (Personal Happiness as a Virtue).

I’m not being stabbed right now. That’s a good thing. I focus on doing things in the present. And that’s what we all do. We all go through our day, working our jobs, reading books, doing a whole range of actions without thinking of the people getting violently attacked throughout the world.

In the first place, most “moral” ideas never take into account man’s limited nature. Man has to sleep. Poop. I’m not going to be able to help a man getting stabbed while I’m asleep. Nor when I’m pooping. What if the murder is happening hundreds, if not thousands of miles away? What if I have to poop? Not only that, but even if I didn’t have to poop, am I really to fly all the way around the world, only to risk my own life to save someone else? I’d certainly find it noble if someone decided to do that themselves. But should I do it for the “overall good”?

This, of course, does not mean that I am completely against helping out people in need. I, personally, am not going to go out of my way to search for people in need (I commend those that do), but if I see someone get hit by a car, I’d, of course, have no problem with dialing 911. It isn’t that I’m against any person receiving help at all, but I am against an attitude of “moral perfection”. Words like “perfect”, “complete”, etc., really can’t be applied to humans; especially when “good” is involved (this, of course, does not mean that punishment should never happen).

I learned a long time ago that nobody is perfect (I don’t think I learned it in a particularly healthy way). But I was asked “WWJD (What would Jesus do?)” I was taught that I should live a “Godly” life. I spent much of my life being worried over “doing enough.” But enough is enough.

There comes a point when we have to accept our own limitations. I certainly don’t ever think we should say “Welp, that man raped that lady and stole her purse. Oh well. What are ya gonna do.” In an immediate circumstance, when one becomes aware of a wrong, it is certainly commendable to try to “right” the wrong. And there’s various different ways to go about trying to “right a wrong”. But the key to this and what I mentioned earlier is anxiety. Anxiety relating to “perfection”. Of course, it is perfectly natural to feel anxious if one witnesses an attack. But why do you feel anxious? You feel anxious for your own safety, anxious about the health of the one attacked, anxious about the safety of anyone else that may happen to run into the attacker, etc. Anxiety isn’t the problem, but why are we anxious, and what are we anxious about?

The problem, once again, is one of “perfection”, or “the perfect good”. “Perfection”, “completeness”, etc., are words that should not be part of one’s ethical vocabulary. One can never be “completely good”, or “perfect”. “Good”, “helpful” action should never be based on perfection, but should rather be accepted as they are: as “good”, and as “helpful”. One man being saved from starvation is good, even if there are countless others that are, at the same time, not being saved from starvation. We must not lose sight of “the good” simply because we can never achieve “perfection”.

Of course, it is true that, in the Christian belief, perfection is required to be saved from eternal damnation. But it is also true that, in the Christian belief, Christ died as a forgiveness of sins as this perfect requirement. That isChristianity. Christianity is “Perfection is required. Welp, here you go. With love.” That’s it. That’s the “extent” of the “perfection”. A nurse can’t alleviate the severe pain of one-hundred patients simultaneously. I suppose God could. But what if He doesn’t? What is the nurse to do? Should she sit around “believing” that she can simultaneously alleviate the pain of all at once? Or should she focus on each patient, one at a time, doing what she can with compassion?

The thing “to do” is what you want. Eat what you want, read what you want, do what you want. If you want to do evil (besides the fact that you’d do it whether or not you had my approval, or anyone else’s), people are going to want to bring you to justice. I think that is the ultimate point of all of this. Expecting everyone to be a sheriff, an executioner, etc., is impossible nonsense. It is an impossible “moral” goal. Someone will want to bring murderers to justice. Someone will want to be a nurse. The key word is “want”. People’s wants will find a way to meet people’s needs; whether people “want” to get paid, or “need” medical care, things find a way to get done. Never perfectly, nor completely, but they happen enough to be significant enough to garner well-deserved positive attention.

This diversity of values truly is a testament to how peaceful coexistence can happen at all. We’ll go back and forth, arguing over how to increase “the good” and decrease “the bad”, but a perfect, complete elimination of “the bad” will never work.

And why does happiness matter? Well, if Heaven is so great, what does that really mean unless it brings one completejoy?

Is Heaven sitting around griping about the gays? Is it a never-ending Bible read? Do they sit around, constantly complaining about how corrupt the young people in Hell are?

The idea that happiness on Earth doesn’t matter spits in the face of the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was a perfect paradise. Doesn’t that mean that Adam and Eve had to be happy? Of course, if they were perfectly content, why did they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Well, to use an analogy, is it not the case that one can be having a great time, but make a grave mistake that directly affects his or her life negatively forever? Can’t a man, driving to the beach to go on vacation, accidentally strike and kill a child with his car, and thus, spend significant time behind bars?

Of course, Adam and Eve disobeyed a direct commandment. But they did not know just how negatively it was going to affect them, and the rest of the world (for the entirety of its existence). This does not mean that they should not have been punished. One, of course, can lament about “why they [we] were ever doomed to failure”, much like one can lament “why the child ever ran out in front of the car”. But what happened happened. Nothing can change it.

In saying all of this, I am very thankful that I am [no longer] like most religiousconservatives. To the religious conservatives, the entire world is a lost cause. All of us sinners are going to Hell (except for the 30 or so that meet in this specific building every Sunday). The rules and regulations to live by to avoid Hell are simply impossible to live by. It is the equivalent of a government with hundreds of thousands of various laws, most of which no citizen really understands (or is even aware of), and many of the rules are so nonsensical that it truly takes a fear of punishment to make one ever even consider abiding by them. You live in constant fear of violating even one of the countless laws, and the government of God will have no mercy on a law-breaker after one dies (which one is never sure of, so this anxiety continues in perpetuity). But the difference between government and God is that, at least to many, an unjust government is possible. But the idea of an unjust GOD is NOT possible to Christians and conservatives.

It is only by the grace of God that I value my happiness here on Earth. (I understand many will say “Well, I’m not religious, and I value my happiness”, or “But you never would’ve gone through that had you never been introduced to religion in the first place.” I’m not going to debate it here. Agree to disagree? Call me a “dumbass believer” on your own blog?) I may never know why He saved me that Hell, of believing that my suffering somehow created my path to Heaven (thus making me purposefully torture myself psychologically), but I am eternally grateful for it. Clearly, there is a difference between the paradise that Eden was and what happened to the world after the fruit was eaten; a difference between me driving to the beach, and me killing a child with my car accidentally. Me killing a child with the car didn’t create the happiness that I had when I envisioned what the beach was going to be like. Clearly.

I get to experience the goodness of God, without EVER being ABLE to “repay” Him in any way, shape, or form. There is no gift that I can give to the Almighty. I was merely given the gift of eternal life through Christ. And it wasn’t because of anything I did: it was merely because God cares about me.

I think this will, ultimately, be the only thing that keeps me from pulling my hair out when I notice government becoming more and more tyrannical, with, seemingly, not enough people realizing it. I think this will be the only thing to keep me sane if I am unfortunate enough to live through a revolutionary war, or if I am kidnapped by my government. Thankfully, if they kill me, they will have only freed me.